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GetSmarter

RHS creative writing student gets published

Thu, 21 Jul 2011 15:15

Random House Struik and leading online education company, GetSmarter are pleased to announce that Stanley Kenani has been chosen as the first author to be published under eKhaya, the brand new ebook imprint from Random House Struik.

Kenani was a student on the GetSmarter and Random House Struik Creative Writing course, which offers students the opportunity to submit their manuscripts to be considered for publication.

South Africa’s largest trade publisher and the country’s leading online education company have partnered to bring online creative writing education to South Africans anywhere in the country. Students may submit their finished manuscripts to Ron Irwin, the course convener and a professional author and literary agent, who selects the best of these and forwards them to Random House Struik for consideration. Kenani is the first student to be selected, and five more GetSmarter students have been chosen for publication later this year.

Kenani’s manuscript, For Honour, is a collection of short stories and will be available for purchase on 1 August 2011. JM Coetzee, who selected For Honour as one of the winners in the SA PEN literary awards, called the text “deceptively simple”. The text is being sold exclusively as an ebook, and will be available at leading ebook retailers locally and abroad.

Kenani was delighted to be chosen to spearhead the new imprint. “Honestly, I never thought my first book would be a short story collection so I was elated to hear that my manuscript had been accepted by Random House Struik. More than two months had passed from the day I submitted it and I was beginning to lose hope. The positive email from the publisher came in time to lift my spirits.”

eKhaya is South Africa’s first ebook-only imprint, a big step for the local book industry and an indicator of Random House Struik’s progressive attitude to publishing. Mark Seabrook, Digital Director at Random House Struik, says: “The growth of e-reading in South Africa over the last six months has been very strong, and as the range of local e-books and the availability of e-reading devices increase this growth is set to continue.

It is very exciting to launch eKhaya as a direct-to-digital imprint, taking advantage of the growth of e-reading and making new authors available in this medium across our multiple e-book retail partners.”

GetSmarter students now have two avenues to publication upon completing the RHS Creative Writing course – standard print publication at one of Random House Struik’s current imprints, or electronic publication with eKhaya. Manuscripts of outstanding quality have a very good chance of being published, according to Frederik de Jager, a publisher at Random House Struik.